The Death Cross Dissected

You'll find 'trading a Death Cross pattern on the daily chart' in the Book of Bad Ideas. I explain why.

John Lansing has reviewed the Death Cross pattern in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) but in this latest video, he looks at what the pattern has meant for other notable stocks.

Video Transcript

The next one would be BMC Software (NASDAQ:BMC). On its chart, you can barely see the Death Cross, but it was very similar to Apple.

The next one is Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX), which you might be familiar with. It’s in the computer hardware sector.

Another one is Vodaphone (NASDAQ:VOD). On its chart, you can see the blue 50-day moving average line, while the red line is the 200-day moving average, and where they cross is the Death Cross. I want to point out again that a lot of times, when you get a Death Cross, it’s because price has already dropped. Had VOD not gone from $28 to $24 from the middle part of October to the middle part of November in a huge waterfall, the Death Cross clearly would not have happened.

The next one is VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN). You can also see on its chart that it put in a Death Cross. Just a couple of months ago, VRSN was at $50. Then, at the end of November/beginning of December, it was in the low $30s. Had it not been for that huge decline that had already taken place, the Death Cross never would have happened.

I have yet to ever see trading the Death Cross signal on the daily chart be a good idea. If there was a Book of Bad Ideas, trading the Death Cross on the daily chart would be in there. But just because it came from the Book of Bad Ideas, doesn’t mean that we should ignore. The Death Cross is something traders should not ignore, but not something you have to do anything about at the moment.

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